Monday, February 23, 2015

Exchange Hybrid deployments are now widely adopted around world, though this deployment model is set to be complex, Microsoft team made their best efforts all the way in simplifying the deployment methods with each version of Exchange server from the time this model was introduced to till date and also added more features on the fly, which reduced the deployment overheads and increased the adoption rate.

Troubleshooting Hybrid deployments is always challenging, It involves some deep dive knowledge on the Environment design, Since we are connecting two different environments to work like one to provide seamless experience of Mail flow, Free/Busy look-up, E-discovery, Mail Tips etc.,

While deploying Hybrid model using the new Hybrid Configuration Wizard , we might get in to some configuration issues that will make the Wizard fail and up next is to identify the underlying issue using the HCW logs and try to resolve it with support and re-run the wizard.

To make things easier Microsoft team today released the new Automated Hybrid Troubleshooter Tool, "Exchange Hybrid Configuration Diagnostic" which will run diagnostic checks and provide solution to address some of the common failures and also upload the logs to Microsoft Data Center, which can be used by the support personnel for faster troubleshooting.

Microsoft team is planning to add more complex troubleshooting features to the tool in the upcoming days.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Microsoft team recently hosted the Office Mechanics live video series session on Azure AD and Office 365 sign-in updates, This session gives us the first look at extending Office 365 and Azure AD secure authentication into other SaaS services and internal applications.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Today Microsoft team made a significant announcement for Office 365 by adding two most awaited features to Office 365 which were earlier part of premium subscription.

Below is the extract from the Official Announcement

"Today we are adding two Identity and Access Management features to the Office 365 subscription, which were previously only available with an additional Azure Active Directory (AD) Premium or Enterprise Mobility Suite subscription. The new features are the Sign in page and Access Panel company branding and cloud user self-service password reset. These two new features are beginning to roll out for Office 365 customers starting today."

Note: Azure AD Self-service password reset is applicable only for Cloud managed accounts and for Accounts managed via On premises, you still need to be using Azure AD premium or Azure Enterprise Mobility Suite subscription.

Also a quick comparison table of Azure AD features and Azure AD usage reports included with Office 365 subscriptions is provided for reference.

I recently came across this excellent Ask PFE Blog post written by Dan Cuomo & Scott Simkins | Microsoft Platforms Premier Field Engineers on various Microsoft training options available for everyone.

This post is quite significant in terms of Microsoft learning, which shows us references to most of the vital resources available outside from Microsoft that can help us to learn and do more with the Technology.

Below are few of the top Learning resources referenced and there are more available inside the blog post with clear description and references.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Windows 10 Technical preview is released, the entire world is testing the preview release and experiencing the latest technology and sharing their reviews in the global community every second, to add to this we now have a new Microsoft Virtual Academy course available on demand for ITPros to know and understand the fundamentals of Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Microsoft team yesterday announced the the first build of Windows 10 Technical Preview for Phones, this is the current hot topic in the Mobile world. If you are already registered for Windows Insider Programyou can register your device and enjoy the new Mobile experience and share your feedback.

Note: Currently only few selected Microsoft Mobile device models are eligible for this program and soon we can see this list expanding.

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Microsoft is continuously making more innovation to their product line in the recent years, this is a know fact. Innovation is not happening only in one region and it spreads across various areas from traditional On premises and extends to the cloud, also one more excellent way of connecting this both On premises and Cloud exist using the Hybrid, which gives us the flexibility of enjoying the innovation of both areas and manage things seamlessly.

This post is a where to post pointing you to the latest announcement on the Office Blogs on the Evolution of SharePoint, this post is quite significant to know the future Road Map SharePoint. Many Organizations using SharePoint Server On premises are now adopting the Hybrid model with SharePoint Online, there are few Organizations who are dependent only on On premises and some are open to Cloud, to bridge the gap between the Cloud and On premises the fore said Hybrid deployment is the best option. Keeping this in mind Microsoft team is planning to release the next version of SharePoint 2016 with more enhancements on Hybrid.

Review the Official write up by Julia White, General manager for the Office Product Management team.

Microsoft team added one more new free E-book to the Microsoft Virtual Academy E-Book collection, from Microsoft Press on Fundamentals of Azure.

The “Microsoft Azure Essentials” series helps you advance your technical skills with Microsoft Azure. “Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure” introduces developers and IT professionals to the wide range of capabilities in Azure. The authors—both Microsoft MVPs in Azure—present conceptual and how-to content for seven key areas and describe management tools and business cases.